Texts in Context

A major new online resource for Secondary students

Texts in Context, a major new online resource for English and History with hundreds of sources from the British Library’s unique collections, is now available on www.bl.uk/learning.

Texts in Context enables students to explore how English language and style have continually evolved and changed over time. They can investigate an extraordinary  selection of different types of text: recipes, handbills, leaflets, advertisements, letters, logbooks, reports, anecdotes, treatises, satires, catalogues, edicts and legal pronouncements, guide books and dictionary entries, from humorous, serious to just quirky. This all provides material to investigate the many histories – social, cultural, economic, political, technological, within which language is used and changes. For example, students can explore the way women are represented, the development of a particular genre or changes in spoken and written dialect.

Teachers can use the many facsimiles and activities to enhance teaching and learning in National curriculum English and History and especially in A’ level English Language. The site is organised into themes with each section providing digital images of original texts and rich background information, as well as ideas for research enquiries, creative activities and museum visits. These resources are drawn from intensive case studies with 11 school groups from Key stage 3 to A’ level. The themes are:

Books for Cooks - changes in a popular genre since the 1400s

Experience of Empire – a range of perspectives on colonial life

Shipwrecksand Smuggling – popular and official views on trade and travel

Taking the Waters - cures, quackery, diversions and dangers of the spa

Town and Tourists - people in search of sea, scenery and science

Dictionaries and Meaning- a selection of unusual dictionaries and word games

Voices in Time and Place- speaking and writing in dialect (with still more sources on http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/ )

Texts in Context was made possible by DCMS/DfES National/Regional Museums Education Partnerships and was developed from a pilot project involving four regional museums, two archive/public record offices, six schools and eleven teachers in the South West of England.  Four of the teachers worked with KS3 classes and the other seven with a mix of Y12 and Y13 students following AS/A2 units in English Language.